


27 Years

by Blissymbolics



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Afterlife, Bittersweet Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Real Life, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blissymbolics/pseuds/Blissymbolics
Summary: It’s 1989 and they share their first kiss alone in the clubhouse. It’s 1994 and they skip out on prom to play video games. It’s 2000 and Richie spends the whole year making fun of Eddie for his Y2K prepping. It’s 2004 and the wars feel like they’re never going to end. It’s 2014 and Richie has two nieces, ages seven and five. It’s 2016 and Richie and Eddie have loved each other for twenty-seven years.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 11
Kudos: 66





	27 Years

It’s 1989 and they share their first kiss alone in the clubhouse. Eddie’s knees are covered in dried leaves and Richie has mosquito bites running up and down his arms. Richie pulls away after several seconds and starts laughing, then dramatically wipes the back of his hand over his damp lips. Eddie does the same. They walk back home five feet apart, the muddy leaves clinging to their sneakers. The sun is setting, the sky purple, they collect birch bark along the way to use as fire starter for their camping trip next week. It’s seven months before they kiss again.

It’s 1990 and the seniors shower them with paintballs. Bill has to go to the hospital for a bruised rib. They’re too old for trick-or-treating, but too young to crash the senior parties, so they pass a bag of M&Ms around Mike’s barn and swing on the rope dangling from the hayloft. They tackle each other in games of capture the flag and laugh as they dissect frog ovaries. They act like little shits in the grocery store and pretend to like the taste of coffee. Richie’s skin is constantly sore from subsurface acne, and when he kisses Eddie it doesn’t feel so childlike anymore.

It’s 1991 and the school board reluctantly agrees to one semester of abstinence-only sex education. Eddie’s mom refuses to sign the permission slip and Richie gets kicked out within seven minutes after asking if you need to get tested if someone comes in your ear. Greta pushes Sarah G. down the stairs and it’s all anyone talks about till finals. During the peak of summer they walk out to the old Puritan graveyard buried in the woods. They eat the wild blackberries growing over the low stone wall and make fun of all the weird names carved on the stones. The ghosts get their revenge when Richie trips into a thorn bush on the walk home.

It’s 1992 and Richie’s learning how to drive. He lazily glides in circles around the abandoned Sears parking lot with his dad in the passenger seat, flinching every time he draws too close to the curb. Sixteen is a strange in-between place. He and Eddie are having sex, but still rely on their parents for Christmas presents. They’re old enough to drive, but still need their field trip forms signed. They can go to the library and read any book they want, but still can’t get into R-rated movies. Richie’s mom keeps asking when he’s going to get a girlfriend, his dad keeps asking when he’s going to get a job, and Eddie keeps asking what he wants to do after high school, as if Richie’s not just going to follow him wherever he goes.

It’s 1993 and Eddie’s mom ends up in the hospital with a herniated disc, so Eddie has to spend several nights at Richie’s place, which leads to a lot of late homework. The middle schoolers suddenly look like seven-year-olds, and Richie never thought he would miss being a kid. He wants to sit on a swing set without feeling stupid. He wants to enjoy a single day without worrying about politics, college applications, or his parents’ eroding marriage. He wants to recapture that first kiss they had in the woods. They still haven’t told the others, and at this point they might just wait until they’re out of Derry.

It’s 1994 and they skip out on prom to play video games, and pretend they’re not bitter. Both of them were secretly hoping one of the girls would ask them, even though they know the girls never ask the guys. Richie applied to all the same schools as Eddie, and to his surprise, he gets into more than half of them. In the fall their parents drive them to the same dorm room where they sleep together on the bottom bunk, cramped and overheated. Richie flunks out after one semester, and lies to his parents about it for three months. And lies to Eddie about lying to his parents. The fallout isn’t pretty, but once it’s out in the open, no one expects anything of him.

It’s 1995 and they get an apartment and load up on furniture from good will. Richie starts playing guitar and quits after coming to the conclusion that he has no skill, talent, or interest. Eddie gains and loses friends on a semester by semester basis. He switches majors from economics to business to accounting, apparently chasing some white whale of employability. They never discuss coming out. They’re not even sure what that would mean exactly. “I like your callouses,” Eddie says while playing with Richie’s fingers, which have always been markedly longer than his own. “They’ll go away soon,” Richie replies, wishing he could keep them without putting in the work.

It’s 1996 and Eddie ends up in the hospital with food poisoning, and takes the opportunity to make Richie his emergency contact, which he knows his mom won’t be happy about. A month later Richie’s dad gets diagnosed with throat cancer, and a month after that his sister almost dies from a freak pond scum infection. And not long after that Richie hits the curb wrong on his bike and ends up needing $2,000 worth of dental work. These things happen in waves. During Thanksgiving Richie’s parents pull out a stack of photos from elementary school, and Richie barely recognizes his own face. He can’t believe his brain was once inside that stupid head.

It’s 1997 and Richie comes home drunk and pukes in the shower. Everything is boring. He cycles through jobs like a transient runaway. Eddie is clinging to his 4.0 like he has a pact with some demon. They quarrel about laundry, dishes, and energy bills, then spend ten hours playing video games like they’re thirteen again. It feels like they’re running out of time. Once Eddie graduates, the grace period will be over. Richie gets arrested for drunk driving, and swears he was barely tipsy. He spends a night in the drunk tank with his nose pressed to his sleeve to shield the smell. Eddie isn’t angry, just disappointed, which is so much worse.

It’s 1998 and Eddie graduates with flying colors, although his precious 4.0 gets knocked down to a 3.9. They move to New York upon Richie’s begging, but Eddie makes him promise that he’ll find a way to earn enough to split the rent fifty-fifty. Richie breaks that promise immediately, but Eddie never gets on his case about it. But he definitely side eyes Richie when he starts taking the stand-up a little too seriously. It’s just a hobby, Richie assures him. Of course he doesn’t expect it to go anywhere. Eddie spends way too much of his paycheck on a cellphone so Richie can call him when he’s out late at gigs.

It’s 1999 and Richie's dad dies. At first he barely feels anything, but then they’re driving up to Maine and he has to pull over along I-96 because his glasses keep fogging up with tears. It’s down-pouring, the rain pelting the roof of the car like hail. Eddie offers to switch sides, causing them to briefly get soaked. Richie stares out the window as Eddie runs a hand down his arm. “I never told him,” Richie says calmly. “You think I should’ve told him?” He looks to Eddie, whose eyes are fixed on the road. “I don’t know,” he answers, turning the knob to speed up the windshield wipers.

It’s 2000 and Richie spends the whole year making fun of Eddie for his Y2K prepping. They vote in their first presidential election. They could’ve voted in 1996, but didn’t care enough to register. Eddie wants to go to grad school, but says he can’t unless Richie can promise to hold down a job. So Richie works at a liquor store for eleven months without incident, apart from two burglaries and a stray feral opossum. Eddie doesn’t really make any friends at school, nor does he keep in touch with anyone from undergrad. They’re twenty-four and still firmly in the closet, but apart from their families, they’re not sure who they’d even tell.

It’s 2001 and they somehow manage to sleep through 9/11. They have a basement apartment in Queens, so they’re about as safe as they can be. They eat cereal while sitting against the wall farthest from the windows. Their moms call and beg them to get out of the city, which they’re more than happy to do once the roads are no longer gridlocked. Eddie’s classes are cancelled for two weeks, so they stop at all the state parks on the way up to Maine, skipping stones and stacking rocks. Eddie can’t transfer schools this late, and Richie wants to stay in New York for the sake of his “career,” so while there’s still rubble in the street, they return to their apartment and have cereal for dinner.

It’s 2002 and Eddie starts getting, well, concerning. He manages to finish his masters, and to no one’s surprise, skips out on the graduation ceremony. He finds a steady job, but the anxious hypothesizing only gets worse. He stays up late waiting for Richie to get home and misses work because he’s too scared to confront the germs on the subway. Richie tries to cheer him up by renting some of their favorite movies from when they were kids, but very few of them hold up. With Eddie’s new salary they’re able to move to a nicer apartment, both hoping the sunlight will fix all their problems.

It’s 2003 and Richie auditions for SNL and is swiftly rejected, but some other opportunities come along. He starts making a little money, a novel concept in the comedy world. Eddie earns roughly four times more than him and won’t let him forget it. Richie’s the trophy wife; he’s the sugar baby. They role-play Richie paying him back with blow jobs. The small gigs start building into something resembling momentum, and for the first time since high school, Richie doesn’t feel like he’s just along for the ride. They’ve been together for exactly half their lives now, which is so damn weird.

It’s 2004 and the wars feel like they’re never going to end. How much longer can they really go on? Aren’t people tired? Aren’t they bored? Richie gets rejected from SNL again and a harsh but fair friend tells him upfront that he sucks at writing skits. Focus on standup and improv. Eddie gets a new job for the company he’ll work at for the next twelve years, even though he insists it’s just a stepping stone. Despite being busier than ever, time feels emptier. There aren’t any landmarks. They buy groceries from the Yemeni bodega, watch one Oscar-worthy movie per year, and cycle through the same four recipes they know how to cook.

It’s 2005 and Richie starts getting a series of mini-breaks, which do nothing for his ego. Suddenly everyone they know starts having kids. They’re almost thirty and still feel like kids themselves. One of Richie’s friends lets him taste some of her breastmilk at a rehearsal, and Eddie reacts as if Richie just told him he ate a human foot. They’ve never talked about having kids themselves, but logistically adoption would be such a pain in the ass that it’s not even worth discussing. Maybe one day. A long, long time from now. In the meantime, they decide to get a cat.

It’s 2006 and Richie fucks up one of his big opportunities, then fucks up several more. He makes some enemies, forms grudges, and probably gets himself on a few blacklists. A series of shitty people screw him over, and his enemies become Eddie’s enemies as well. His drinking gets worse, but he doesn’t dial it back until he’s getting his stomach pumped like he’s fucking seventeen again. They don’t have sex for seven weeks straight and Eddie makes out with a random guy he met at a networking event. It’s a year of pain and hate, possibly their worst yet, and their cat dies two days before Christmas.

It’s 2007 and they decide to move to Chicago. New York was getting too bloated. Too much competition, too many burned bridges. Besides, Chicago’s cheaper and the comedy’s better. It’s a clean slate, a fresh start. But moving doesn’t cure Richie’s drinking problem, as much as he’d hoped it would, nor does it resolve Eddie’s myriad issues. But still, they love each other, even when it’s boring, and stressful, none of their second guesses make it to third ones. Eddie’s never too busy for him. He never tries to rile Richie up or shrug off his petty vents. They’re good together, and sometimes they take it for granted.

It’s 2008 and the stock market crashes. Eddie’s job remains secure, but as expendable income dries up nationwide Richie’s gigs get sparser and the tips less generous. He starts considering changing careers, but what else could he possibly do? He doesn’t have a degree or any useful skills, and he’s too lazy to go back to school. So he keeps doing his gigs and sits around their apartment shopping bits and pretending to write a screenplay. He’s thirty-two; this is pathetic. Eddie comes home every night burnt out and unsatisfied. Neither of them can shake the feeling that they wasted their youth. Not on each other, just on everything else.

It’s 2009 and Richie finally makes it. He gets a Comedy Central special. He gets a tour. He gets everything he always wanted. The high is real, and admittedly he lets it go to his head. He gets cocky and annoying. One day Eddie snaps. “I’ve been paying your bills for eleven fucking years, drop the rags to riches shit.” Eddie apologizes a few minutes later, but he’s right. Richie reigns it in, tries to pull his head out of his ass, but he does get a kick out of earning more than Eddie for the first time ever, even though it’s only by $500 once they sit down to do their taxes.

It’s 2010 and something inside him breaks. Suddenly he hates getting recognized in public, not that it happens much. He hates the thought that millions of people know him by name and have their own opinions, predominantly negative. The scopophobia gets worse. It comes and goes. This was never a problem before. Why now? One night he drinks too much and Eddie has to drive him to a gig, but he refuses to get out of the car like a stubborn toddler. “It’s a small crowd, you’ll be fine.” Richie lowers his head and confesses that he doesn’t want anyone to know he exists; no one except for Eddie.

It’s 2011 and they finally move to LA, but they’ve barely unpacked their kitchen utensils before Richie has to leave on tour again. He calls Eddie from identical hotel rooms across the states and sends him pictures of funny license plates and gnarly greenrooms. He goes out drinking with a woman from stage tech after his show in Boston, and is just sober enough to lean away when she tries kissing him. “Sorry, are you seeing someone?” she asks, embarrassed. Richie gulps. “Yeah, I’m uh… married in every way except on paper.” She asks if he has any pictures, and he’s just drunk enough to pull out his phone. “He looks nice,” she says in approval. Richie never sees her again, but remembers her face perfectly.

It’s 2012 and Eddie’s mom dies, but it’s not unexpected. Eddie was making flights out to Bangor at least once every two months, and he stayed there for three weeks straight while she was on her last legs. Fortunately he doesn’t need to pull the plug or anything like that, and when Richie flies out for the funeral Eddie just seems relieved, and isn’t ashamed to admit it. “I hated her,” he seethes while they’re packing up her apartment, which smells like bad pipes and cat urine. “I hated her so fucking much,” he cries while placing a blank sticker on a china vase that he wasn’t allowed to touch as a kid, and seems to revel in pricing it at only $1.

It’s 2013 and Richie gets more popular. A Netflix special puts him on the international stage. It gets harder to go out in public, which makes his paranoia all the more acute. He starts to regret pursuing this line of work. Is he really any happier now than he would be with some generic desk job? Eddie is the only thing that truly matters. Eddie is his life support, and everything else is complimentary. Is all the stress really worth it? They don’t need the money. Look at him, just another celebrity whining about the burden of fame.

It’s 2014 and Richie has two nieces, ages seven and five, but the seven-year-old is so small they look like they could be twins. They go on a hike with Richie’s sister and the older one clings to his back while the younger hangs on his chest like a pair of koalas. Richie helps them gather sticks to build fairy houses and holds their hands while they balance along fallen trees. As they’re driving home Eddie finally confesses that he doesn’t want kids. Sure, he likes them, but if he ever lost one, he’s not sure how he would survive. Richie shrugs and says it’s no big deal, internally hoping that Eddie will change his mind.

It’s 2015 and Richie guest stars in a show where he has to kiss a woman, so now he can no longer say that Eddie’s the only person he’s ever kissed, and some sappy part of him is sad to relinquish that honor. All in all, it feels like he got a pretty good deal. If life is a crap shoot, at least he’s walking away from the table with more than he brought. And the funny thing is he’s just starting to settle into the thought that he and Eddie will probably be together for the rest of their lives. How strange is that?

It’s 2016 and Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak haven’t seen each other in twenty-two years. In 1994 Eddie left for Vermont and Richie went down to New York. They forgot each other within days. They had relationships, but never fell in love. They were reunited in Derry for one day, then died together several hundred feet beneath the earth. But no one in Derry ever really dies. The turtle could not save them, but when they wake up above the surface in a place between life and death, they’ll have memories of the life they were denied. They’ll have each other for as long as they like.

**Author's Note:**

> I mainly wanted to write this to get out all the little ideas I had that weren't worth a full fic. Hope you enjoyed


End file.
